Jim Warman

Pretty cool.... If you are dealing with wide eyed neophytes, "labs" like that will have them amazed and captured..... If you are dealing with someone with no small amount of experience... someone that has a grasp on volt drop testing (I figure if you have a handle on proper volt drop tests - you have made it to where you need to be), then Bruces cut-aways are more valuable. The "lab" says "here is your arm". The cutaway says "here is you appendix... and it is this far away from your...". I can walk out into the yard, open a hood and see a 6.7 (no need for a mega-dollar test jig). To see how a cylinder head casting inter-relates with valves, ports, injectors, glow plugs and what-ever..... I need Bruce. Now I feel like a cheer-leader.... "rick 'em, rack 'em, ruck 'em, ruck 'em... grab that ball and really run....".

It doesn't matter so much what they are saying about you as long as they spell your name right....

Dustin, the 6.4s with pooched cam/lifter that I have heard sound almost like a 7.3 with a bent push tube (something akin to the whopwhopwhop of a helicopter. Pop out the air filter and you can hear it plain as day. Leon, I'd be a tad careful when not replacing any fuel lines... especially if fuel lines are getting charged out on the RO... Personally, I wouldn't get involved with such an adventure... period. John... use a dial indicator to verify lifter movement. Intake lobe lift should be 0.229" - exhaust 0.2326 -allowable loss is 0.002". FWIW, we used to have one tech that couldn't install pushtubes to save his life.

T'would be circa '06 and new trucks sold a guy both an Escape and the lightest single axle holiday trailer we had... That thing couldn't get out of it's own way. It screamed the message "just because you CAN do something - it doesn't follow that you SHOULD".

Go HERE .... on the left you'll see a link to "Owner Guides". Click that and follow the drop downs. Select "Owner Guide" and on about page 60 it'll tell you how to set your compass zone and calibrate the compass.

Before this job, it had been a long, long time since I'd worked at a dealership. Truth be known, I didn't know what the pay scale was until they moved my toolboxes (yes, the store picked up the tab and I didn't have to lift a finger). Turns out we were the highest paying shop in town at that time.. Stranger yet is the fact that I never did apply for the job - my wife and I had stopped in to order some parts for my own vehicle and the Sm at that time passed by and said "You should come work for me..". To which my wife replied "When can he start..." - and the die was cast. The largest impetus for the move was the available training, documentation and special tools - pretty much in that order.

Alex.... mind if I ask why the change? Better wages? Better training? Prettier service writers? Microwave in the lunch room was cleaner? Inquiring minds want to know. Moreover.... did you give the old managment the opportunity to address the things that made you want to switch? I've been at my current dealer for nine years (a world record for me). Before a lot of years being self employed, I would get tired after about 3 years... but that was back when we didn't have such a tech shortage. Good luck with the new job... but you need to be careful you don't cut off your nose to spite your face...

With the ecoboost, the fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber...it is injected just before the combustion event is intended (injection pressure under high load conditions is something like 2200 PSI). This reduces the chances of preignition and/or detonation. Additionally, all ecoboost engines have variable exhaust cam timing - and some have variable intake cam timing as well. Exhaust cams are retarded to reduce cylinder pressures (ergo reducing cylinder temperatures) and are used as emissions controls. Intake cams are advanced and are used to increase cylinder pressures (ergo performance). If at all possible, sign up for the EcoBoost class (31S30T0). It's only two days and there is stuff to learn. FWIW, I had to take it to keep my diesel cert.....

The presence of an insert in the skirt is an interesting factoid... My own reference to the modular engine pistons is partly due to the insert in the side of the piston... I hesitate to use the word skirt since the mod motor pistons I have seen do not have a traditional slipper skirt design. I am more than a little surprised that these engines aren't a lot noisier when they are cold - unless, of course, this particular design allows for less noticeable "cam". We both realize that the demands placed on the typical diesel engine piston are more severe than anything we generally see in gas engines - 'up until now' might be an appropriate disclaimer at this point since the 3.5 ecoboost has, we are told, piston cooling jets... something that indicates that the pistons may be subject to temperatures beyond the capabilities of the materials they are built of. Still and all, I'm glad you brought the subject (of pistons) up.... Piston technology has, apparently, been in a state of flux and the results appear to be nothing less than (with apologies to Mr. Spock) fascinating.

The 7.3 uses a cast aluminum alloy piston with a Ni-resist insert. Sometimes referred to as bimetallic pistons. The insert is located at the top compression ring area. It is harder than the piston material and, from what I can tell, two of it's advantages are improved piston life and the insert allows the top ring groove to be located closer to the top of the piston reducing the shrouded area. Since the VT444 was such a successful engine, one might assume that the same piston technology was used in the VT365 and the 6.4 since these pistons appear to be cheaper to manufacture than forged types. As for the 6.7... I can 'see' Ford using this same architecture as long as the materials play well with compacted graphite iron cylinder walls (look what they did to the modular engine pistons). I'm glad you posed this question as it has opened my eyes to developments that I just never imagined (or dared to imagine) regarding something as basic and old as piston design and materials. Trunk pistons.... articulating pistons... time to do some reading.....

"Fault detection"..... I envision more 6.4s pulled over to the side of the road waiting for reduced engine power mode to pass..... or waiting for a tow truck... Kelly, I don't think this is going to fix those concerns quite the way some think it will. I have no doubts it will help reduce some "costly repairs"... but only because the PCM is going to stop the engine from hurting itself when stuff does go wrong.

With one of the recent (not the most recent, though) updates, I lost our VDR... I had two recordings I wanted to upload but IDS would recognize the VDR but it wouldn't upload... instead it went back to the opening screen. Only thing I could do was sacrifice the recordings and start a new VDR session. This was a bit of a scare since VDR isn't totally supported any more. You cannot buy a new one - you cannot get your old one fixed - you cannot buy pieces and parts - but you can still use the one you have. As far as IDS itself is concerned... I keep extra cables on hand - they are SPENDY. I like to keep at least one VCM to DLC cable, one VCM to laptop cable and a couple of the Toughbook pigtails on hand

You are checking the primary cooling system only... (though it might not hurt to check the coolant strength in the secondary cooling system with the first kind of test strip - this new coolant does not play well with conventional coolant hydrometers). Forget the instructions that come with the chemistry set and use the procedure in the WSM. It's in section 303-03B and you have to follow each step in turn. Each step decides what the next step will consist of... Get one step wrong - Do NOT tip the final test vial after you remove the top... there is a small amount of reactive substance (hey, I ain't a rocket scientist) in the vial - a small enough amount that some might not notice it... Everyone seems to have trouble with at least the first one... if you flat rate read too much......

I need to spend less time sitting in hotel rooms far from home.... As far as making anyone look bad???? I am my own worst enemy... honest... Mr. Warman was my Dad... I'm "that asshole in northern Alberta"... an ex-firefighter army brat high school dropout with more opinions than Carters got pills. And you thought I was just another pretty face....

Am I the only one that worries about seeing "Micro$oft" logos on so much Ford stuff? For your reading pleasure.... something shamelessly stolen from another venue. <><><><><><><><><><><><><><>< If Microsoft Built Cars By Super Admin | Published 03/31/2005 | Jokes | Rating: If Microsoft Built Cars Every time they repainted the lines on the road, you'd have to buy a new car. Occasionally your car would just die on the highway for no reason. Accept this, restart and drive on. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause the car to stop and fail to restart. You'd have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you'd just accept this too. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car 95" or "Car NT". But then you'd have to buy more seats. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but it would only run on five percent of the roads. The oil, engine, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced with a single "General Car Fault" light. People would get excited about "new" features in Microsoft cars, forgetting completely that they had been available in other cars for years. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft gas and auto fluids. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt. The airbag system would say, "Are you sure?" before going off. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened. Microsoft wouldn't build their own engines, but form a cartel with their engine suppliers. The engine would be a side-valve design so you could still use Model T Ford parts on it. Microsoft cars would have a special radio/cassette player which would only be able to listen to Microsoft FM and play Microsoft cassettes. Microsoft would do well, because even though they don't own any roads, all road manufacturers would give away Microsoft cars for free! If you couldn't afford to buy a new car, you could borrow your friend's and copy it. Whenever you bought a car, you would have to reorganize the ignition a few days until it worked. You would need an upgrade to run cars on a highway next to each other.

I think it was last year that they issued a TSB about 3.5 mods.... One item dealt with looking at the paint daub on the wastegate rods... Now that we've had one of these "somewhat" apart, it is easy to see how a turbo might be overspeeded.If you think these things look small on the outside.... just wait'll you see what they look like on the inside.... For only a two day course, I think we covered a fair bit of ground including some of the new PIDs we are going to see....

Y'know... I composed a lengthy reply to your current message.... and I went back over your initial post - flat rate reading IS one of my specialties... When you unplugged the ICP sensor, you say the truck started "normally". Remembering that ICP_PRESS of any kind is a computed value... did you check to see if your ICP was biased - You mention ICP_V at .89 and "frozen"? How long did it take to build ICP when you started cranking the engine, and did you plug the ICP back in to see if the no start returned? If you did and the engine started, did the readings differ?

A leak would be a non-designed or unintended discharge of a particular fluid.... The IPR is designed to be a "calibrated, intended discharge of engine oil". Adhering strictly to semantics, if the IPR is working properly it is not leaking because any discharge is intended. If the IPR is "stuck" open, some of the oil being discharged is unintended - ergo, it must be a leak. The best comparative example would be a fuel injector..... let's consider a gas engine fuel injector.... If it is discharging the amount of gas it is intended to discharge at the time it is intended to be discharging it, it is functioning normally. If it is discharging more gas than intended, discharging gas at a time that is unintended or discharging gas from a location that is unintended - we consider it to be............

First..... if the customer says "replace the engine, I don't want to fart around with this one and I want to get back to work "FOR SURE" as soon as possible", what is the problem? A lot of these guys have 10 other owners waiting for them to not show up for work one day too many - contract gone... Why would I force my customer into wanting less? If he wants less than he needs, I'll be the first to check him up on it.... If he wants more than he needs, I'll investigate his motive before I try to downsell him..... Tread carefully. Too big a bill is a discomfort. Too much downtime can make a man bankrupt. Now... that "BS aftermarket air shut off" (and I think I remember this truck from some other issues) might be something required by WCB and/or insurance coverage... Just because we cannot appreciate the importance of something doesn't make it BS. FWIW, positive air shut offs have been around in one form or another since the 1950s. We are paid quite handsomely to install them. Not having one can have the effect of keeping many owners at home rather than on a jobsite. As it stands... you have an undisclosed amount of time into something you have yet to diagnose and a customer that has asked for a specific course of action he is more than willing to pay for..... Another shop has performed, somewhat recently, an extremely intrusive repair... Am I missing something?

By all means... pull the partsmonger over the counter... not sure what that might fix or even why the parts guy might be at fault.... Could be that the original repair didn't get all the contamination out of the system.... could be the new oil cooler failed for some obscure reason.... Whatever might be the reason for the failure, getting pissed ain't gonna fix squat. FWIW, the oil cooler is about the only place for the cooling system and engine lube system to swap spit. Like Mike asks....insert or assembly?

Kyle and I will be pissing Darryl off Thursday and Friday at the Edmonton training facility... (March 3 and 4). Anyone else gonna be there?

Yes to the 15 PSI... 17ish PSI is what I used to see the most of on decent trucks... 19ish PSI the odd time.... 25+PSI with a stock turbo and no power adders? This is something I would like to see for myself....

Like Bruce says.... 8 PSI is way low. A decent 7.3 will make at least 15 PSI - 17 PSI is real nice. If you can't make 15 you have a problem... and this is why you get the big bucks.... Go to section 4 in your PC/ED and refer to "performance diagnostics". Start at the beginning.... do NOT assume anything.

"then" and "than"... what can I say? In the famous quotes department.... I once had a tech tell me he "almost had it tight.... and then it cross threaded itself".

So... it's -28C yesterday AM and I get the keys to a no start that's been out back for a few days. Push it into the shop, plug in the block heater and hook up a charger. Not quite an hour later, I hook up IDS and watch my "no start" PIDs as I crank the engine.... 48.5 volts.... 4.5 volts.... 600 and some PSI ICP.... FUEL_PW is like 13ms or better... hmmmm - IPR is 84% and cranking rpm is 108... Motor and oil are pretty cold yet... could IPR be that high because of low engine cranking speed? We have already decided that this motor is plain wore out and the customer is trying to keep it patched together while they wait for the proverbial new truck (the one that never seems to show up on time). Left it to warm up for a few hours while another, more pressing job was at hand.... Cranking rpm is better.. closer to 150... IPR is still 84% but FUEL_PW is zip and ICP is running a close second at 40 PSI. When oil gets that cold... it can do some funny things..... Oh, yeah... turned out to be a stuck IPR.....